


interlude, unbroken

by lonesomelikeasong



Category: BioShock, BioShock Infinite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonesomelikeasong/pseuds/lonesomelikeasong
Summary: a small moment in Rapture (Burial at Sea inspired)





	interlude, unbroken

After so many moments of great disquiet, he finds himself in one of the glass tunnels that run between sections of the city. Everything smells like seawater, even in that arc of unbreakable protection. The reminder bears down, even so. He doesn’t understand any of it, not the vanity of a place existing where it should not nor the fact that he himself is in awe of its being there. It doesn’t feel right, but there he stands.  
She’s there too, the girl with all the love and the almighty power, and she’s looking at him with the eyes of a child. She trusts him more than he can bear, and it kills him over and over. Maybe it hasn’t killed him yet, but it will. He knows this much.  
“Do you ever just look up when you’re here? Do you try to see out?” She asks him, still trusting in his honesty.  
He doesn’t have the heart to lie.  
“Every time I’m in these tunnels. The last couple of hours, yeah. I’m just looking out.”  
She sighs, and he almost remembers why. He can’t anymore, though. Every moment with her feels like she’s the first one of her kind, and yet he feels like he’s known her from the moment she began. The light of the city washes over them in waves. The motion of the water above them distorts every wavelength, making each of them look different in every ebb and flow.  
“Do you remember me?” She asks.  
He hesitates before he answers. He remembers who he thinks she is. He knows her forgiveness, and her inquisition, but he doesn’t know her. He wants to know that she was happy once, before he lit her cigarette and they struck the deal.  
“I remember meeting you. In my office. I remember not realizing how much you were gonna be. Is that what you remember?”  
She sighs.  
“Rapture,” She says, “The city below the lighthouse. You remember the lighthouse?”  
She’s all washed over in blue, and he sees how beautiful she is in that and every other light. He is struck with a love so great as to blind him, and he is forced to look away.  
She sighs again.  
“You’ll see it soon. It’s hard to see you like this again. I keep thinking about you playing the guitar for those poor people. That was the kindest thing that I ever saw you do.”  
A flash of light and he’s in an opposite world, a city in the sky that knows no love except for her. Screams of joy and pain fill the air, and he is made sick by the smells of blood and carnival food. A great bird calls overhead, or at least that’s how it seems. He blinks his eyes, and finds that it’s only a whale’s song. She’s looking at him now, eyes full of worry.  
“Was that real?” She asks, reaching out her thimble-fingered hand.  
“I don’t know anymore,” he answers, the sight still ringing through him like a bruise.  
“You’ll see it,” she says.  
They don’t speak again for a while after that, and they don’t leave for their next stop just yet. Three feet of space separate them as they gaze up, each occasionally glancing at the other out of the corner of their eyes. He can’t help but feel that he should have loved her more in some history, in a platonic way that defies all reason. He wants to love her now, even in this separation. He knows he’ll never have the chance.  
Above them, the ocean rises for fathoms and fathoms. They are far below any living thing. At times, it seems they are the last hope that either of them will ever have. He doesn’t know that he can be good for her, and in the blue light all over them he knows that in any reality she deserves better. He doesn’t know how he could be anything other than the man she met in the office. He wants to be more.


End file.
